The End of an Era

Since my entire life revolves around TV, let me regale you with a piece of "How I Met Your Mother."

Ted Evelyn Mosby, the main character, re-returned to his crush's doorstep (very drunk) to confess his love. Instead, he puked on her custom door mat.

His best friend, Marshall, was offended by the story. "So all that 'Puke-Free since '93 stuff was just a lie, huh?'"

Well folks, I was ticket-free since '94. No speeding tickets. No moving violations. No wrecks. My record was blissfully clear -- until Saturday night.

Now, I thought I was going to write about my superior dining experience this morning. And maybe I will, someday, when the hurt ends. But right now, all I can think about is my stupid, expensive, retarded goddamn ticket.

There is a stop sign in my neighborhood. It leads to a little-used road, my personal Bat-entrance, and it's a handy little shortcut around some massive traffic. On Saturday, in my haste to get to the Deep Fork Grill, I rolled that stop sign. Hell, I might have sped up a little. Regardless, it was the wrong thing to do.

And not just because I got caught, though that's certainly a component. No, it was wrong because stop signs are there for stopping. As much as I hate bad drivers, I have to admit, I was behaving like one. And that cop, who was sitting there in his all-black car, knew somebody was going to roll that sign. That's why he was there, after all. It's the end of the month and he has a quota to get through.

So it was bad luck and bad timing but mostly bad driving that netted me a $170 ticket. There goes my streak. There goes some money.

And the worst of it? Honestly? There's no one else to blame. And my anger at that fact scares me.

Shouldn't we want things we can take responsibility for? If it's you that did it, at least you can do better next time. I know every stop sign I see for a while will have me making a deliberate and full stop. No pausing. No slowing down. I will stop stop stop.

But I wished it was somebody else's fault. I wanted so bad to be able to blame anybody but me. And that's a failing. That's a goddamn shame.

I did it. It was me and no one else. Even if there were extenuating circumstances, I don't think anything short of, "Officer, my wife is dying and I must get her to the emergency room" cuts it. And I know rolling a stop sign isn't the end of the world. I know a ticket isn't going to leave me destitute. But I ought to be happy that the blame is squarely on my shoulders, because that way, I can make sure it doesn't happen again.

An amazing meal and my dad's efforts to get me back in the church later on.